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Software Licenses Have It Out in Arena Free-For-All

Knoxville, TN (HACT) -- An ear-splitting roar from the capacity crowd of 104,079 packed last night into Knoxville's massive Neyland Stadium marked the beginning of the software industry's 2004 First Annual Clash of the License, which pitted the infamous GNU GPL against the growing numbers of its open source fellows.

Neyland Stadium played host Tuesday to the 2004 Clash of the License

The GNU GPL (General Public License) itself was the first let out of the GNU dugout, eliciting an enthusiastic response from the crowd. Already coated in anticipatory sweat, it roamed the arena searching for an opponent. Tension rose in the arena each silent second until the Creative Commons people let their ANCSA license out. With a loud clash of claws against teeth, the event was at last truly under way.

The Clash of the License is the brainchild of the trio of licensing masters Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, and Eric S. Raymond, each of whom was sitting atop their own dugout with a proud but trembling hand on the release gates during the forty-six-minute bout.

"It was about time to get all these license issues out of the abstract," said Lessig, "and put them in a concrete form people could see, smell, and shout about."

But it was members of the Debian Project that suggested the arena battle format.

"We heard the discussion between RMS [Stallman] and Larry [Lessig] and ESR [Raymond]," said Debian Project leader Martin Michlmayr, "and we figured they should just get [the licenses] in a big stadium and let 'em fight it out. Plus it relieves a lot of tension."

Apparently the trio liked the suggestion and made immediate arrangements to book the Neyland Stadium. The rest is licensing history, as the stadium owners graciously allowed the event to take place in exchange for VIP box seats and an undisclosed number of copies of Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

A total of 17 licenses took part in the rough-and-tumble bout, including three variants of the small but quick Creative Commons license, the BSD/MIT "two-headed monster", the sleek and lizardlike Open Content entry, and most of the extended family of GNU licenses.

One entry from the GNU group, the so-called GNU "Free" Documentation License, made for an especially exciting few minutes when it raced across the length of the stadium to attack the almost-disqualified Debian Free Software Guidelines, strewing blood and scraps of flesh in every direction and nearly killing three spectators as the pair crashed through a restraining barrier.

Despite the danger the crowd was on its feet cheering during the entire three minutes, after which the GNU Free Doc had to be rushed to a nearby veterinary clinic.

Shortly thereafter the ringmaster, Linus Torvalds, cleared the arena for halftime, and the mood lightened as the crowd enjoyed the wacky antics of rodeo clown team "Up To Our Britches", a partnership between the Microsoft EULA and the SCO IP License, which cavorted with each other in a heartwarming "drunken" dance while the loudspeakers blared Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk".

Promoters say next year's Clash of the License should be even bigger. "We're staying tuned to the open source community for new blood," claimed promoter Wichert Akkerman enthusiastically, hinting that ads for the event would appear in next year's Super Bowl commercial break.

(The HACT team produces humor and opinion articles, not official news. Any resemblance to actual news is just a matter of style.)